THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION — bdelygma is something that makes you retch (from bdelyssomai, to feel disgust), the Greek Old Testament's word for an idol or a defilement; erēmōsis is a laying-waste. ⚠ The phrase is quoted, and Matthew 24:15 names its source out loud: Daniel, at 11:31, 12:11 and 9:27. Daniel's own phrase had a first fulfilment the first century knew well — in 167 BC Antiochus IV set up an altar to Zeus in the temple and sacrificed on it, which is what 1 Maccabees calls by the same words. So the verse invokes something that had ALREADY happened once, which is a large part of why dating its second reference is so contested. Note also that Matthew 24:15 carries the Gospel's one aside to the reader ('let the reader understand'), which is the writer speaking rather than Jesus. → first discussed at Matt 24:15